Cliche's in fiction that annoy you most

[GenericAmerican]

"You see this pistol? It has a 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 round magazine that will run out just when I don't need it too."

"You see that nuke going off? Let us stare right at it."

"Hold up, my gun jammed; oh well, I will take on all fifty guards with my bare damn hands!"

"Don't worry, we are twenty feet from the center of a JDAM strike, but we won't be turned into a red mist; instead we will calmly walk towards the camera and look badass...probably light up a ciggy too."

"You see all five hundred of those guards shooting at us? You see that ditch across an open field? Let's run for the ditch, don't worry, the guards can't shoot worth shit."

"Bwahahah, I am an evil mastermind, and I have caught my arch nemisis...now onto a ten minute monolog that will allow my prisoner just enough time to escape."

or

"Let me try and hack in."

 

[rekabdarb]

Not sure if this is a cliche, but I'm really tired of when every single god damn time someone says, "at least it can't get any worse" something worse happens. It's annoying and predictable.

or after someone says that, someone else follows up with. "don't say that, it always gets worse when you say that"

 

[Bags159]

Not sure if this is a cliche, but I'm really tired of when every single god damn time someone says, "at least it can't get any worse" something worse happens. It's annoying and predictable.

or after someone says that, someone else follows up with. "don't say that, it always gets worse when you say that"

Yeah, the whole "oh things got worse when he said they couldn't" scene was funny the first couple of times.

It's almost always worse weather:
"We failed to make camp but at least things can't get any worse" *RAIN BEGINS*
"Well, at least it's not storming" *THUNDER IS HEARD AND LIGHTNING IS SEEN*

etc.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

*looking at computer monitor*"is that a 12 core?"
"yeah, I have to have faster response time...."
"wait?...you have the high scroe in all the MMORPG's?"
"all of them"

yes thats right the high score in every MMO ever[/B]

Cracked did an article about that not too long ago. It leads me to assume that the people who hacked PSN must have been using like...3 keyboards with like...4 people at each one of them!

---

"Hello young protagonist. I am here to train you. We shall turn you into your perfect form using a montage. At the end of which, I shall either die or become evil."

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

yes thats right, the high score in every MMO ever[/B]

http://archer.gamebanana.com/img/ico/sprays/like_a_boss.png


My hate cliche is when a man and a woman fall in love.....in EVERY FUCKING MOVIE. There always has to be a love interest all the time.....ALL THE TIME!

 

[Katana314]

Not sure if this is a cliche, but I'm really tired of when every single god damn time someone says, "at least it can't get any worse" something worse happens. It's annoying and predictable.

or after someone says that, someone else follows up with. "don't say that, it always gets worse when you say that"

Yeah, the whole "oh things got worse when he said they couldn't" scene was funny the first couple of times.

It's almost always worse weather:
"We failed to make camp but at least things can't get any worse" *RAIN BEGINS*
"Well, at least it's not storming" *THUNDER IS HEARD AND LIGHTNING IS SEEN*

etc.

Simpsons did this:

*Simpsons have been evicted*
Marge: Oh no....Homie...we've lost our home!...We're homeless...out on the street!!
Homer: Hey, don't worry, Marge. At least it's not raining!
(He gestures upwards, and holds the pose. Pause for 5 seconds)
Homer: See? It's not raining. So we're just homeless.

I also hate the poor hacking misportrayal, but I loved the NCIS dual-keyboard thing, simply because of how it ended with Gibbs pulling the plug. "You fucking dumbasses."

 

[Bags159]

*looking at computer monitor*"is that a 12 core?"
"yeah, I have to have faster response time...."
"wait?...you have the high scroe in all the MMORPG's?"
"all of them"

yes thats right the high score in every MMO ever[/B]

Cracked did an article about that not too long ago. It leads me to assume that the people who hacked PSN must have been using like...3 keyboards with like...4 people at each one of them!

---

Haha, touche. I cringe every time they do something game related on NCIS, despite loving the show.

1.) Any game they play is exclusively played with the keyboard. No mouse input needed, ever.
2.) The mentioned 2 people 1 keyboard scene. I was really hoping they had two computers and two keyboards and it just looked like one keybaord...
3.) The ridiculous conversation McGee had with that chick. "I can't beat X level" "Oh there's a secret key hidden under the door mat" "Oh that's so simple" <- He couldn't just google this?

Not sure if this is a cliche, but I'm really tired of when every single god damn time someone says, "at least it can't get any worse" something worse happens. It's annoying and predictable.

or after someone says that, someone else follows up with. "don't say that, it always gets worse when you say that"

Yeah, the whole "oh things got worse when he said they couldn't" scene was funny the first couple of times.

It's almost always worse weather:
"We failed to make camp but at least things can't get any worse" *RAIN BEGINS*
"Well, at least it's not storming" *THUNDER IS HEARD AND LIGHTNING IS SEEN*

etc.

Simpsons did this:

*Simpsons have been evicted*
Marge: Oh no....Homie...we've lost our home!...We're homeless...out on the street!!
Homer: Hey, don't worry, Marge. At least it's not raining!
(He gestures upwards, and holds the pose. Pause for 5 seconds)
Homer: See? It's not raining. So we're just homeless.

I also hate the poor hacking misportrayal, but I loved the NCIS dual-keyboard thing, simply because of how it ended with Gibbs pulling the plug. "You fucking dumbasses."

Haha, yeah. "Why'd it shut down!?!?!" "I unplugged it" *holds up cord*

 

[Vault101]

deus ex machina should be reasonable, acceptable (in setting) and used so sparingly that you can count the uses with one finger. Anything else is poor writing.

Amnesia. Enough with freaking amnesia. Amnesia is you being too freaking lazy to create a backstory and reeks of "made it up along the way".

~60 - 80% of films are the same stereotypical/archetypal characters with the same plot and the same twists, with a change of appearance for the characters and a (slightly) different setting. I rented a movie recently, and during an early scene with all the main characters standing in a line (army style) paused the movie, walked up to the screen and predicted what each character was going to do throughout the film and how it would end. One and a half hours later, I stood up, decleared "I'm psychic" and felt depressed about the world.

Also, "Choosen one" storylines. Although I loved how A Bard's Tale (console) parodied it ("A choosen one of many isn't new").

EDIT: I suppose that if it meets the criteria it technically isn't deus ex machina, but come on, as if that's ever going to happen!

while I guess Amnesia is somwhat overdone in games, I dont think its necicarly a lack of ability to add a back story

its more a usefull tool to put the main charachter and the audience on the same level, and even allow for charachter development or what ever as the mian charachter learns whats going on

and yeah there is nothing new under the sun...but it depends on how well its done, Id only really notice certain things if its played painfully straight

 

[King Kupofried]

Whenever characters have one of those 'dramatic' silhouette clashes, the ones where they rush past eachother (with swords) to deliver the final blow and then just stand there with their backs to eachother until one of them falls over
It is over used, and it is always stupid and predictable.
Here are the two possible outcomes.

-Characters Clash! > You realize that it is absolutely impossible for the bad guy to lose simply based on the fact that you aren't even half way through the movie/episode/game/series > The good guy falls over.

-Characters Clash! > It is the end of the series/game/movie/episode so there is absolutely no way the Bad Guy is going to be left standing > Oh crap, the good guy is wobbling! > But the good guy falls over instead! Ha ha ha! Did you see that? Did we fool you!? I'll bet there was no way you ever saw that coming!

 

[Vault101]

Its a Hollywood action movie, we must jump through hoops to establish and re-establish the heterosexuality of the protagonist/hero, this is doubly true if it is a "buddy cop" movie.

I think you're confusing your feminism with hatred of masculinity. It's cool because of social taboos.

@OP: Yeah, that cracked article pissed me right off.

I presume by "masculinity" you mean hegemonic or positivist masculinity (the dominant formation of masculinity within any given culture or learnt dominant masculinity respectively) and no not at all. I resent the assumption that as a viewer I caould only possibly relate to a protagonist if they are heterosexual.

As for "my feminism", I am undecided if that is possible. I am sympathetic to the agument that feminism is foregounded in essentialism and empiricism. As a man I an unable to appreciatte on a number of levels the oppression of women. On the other hand I believe in the ethos of "equal but different" and do think people should not be subjected to prejudice/discrimination due to their gender/sex.

Are you suggesting I am trying to be cool in light of social taboos, or that obligitary heterosexuality is a social taboo?

In buddy buddy cop shows. The "heterosexual reinforcement" you're speaking about is merely masculine behaviour. It is rare that they put down homosexuals, or outright boast of heterosexuality.

I am suggesting that you are misrepresenting positive-masculine behaviour as homophobic behaviour. And that you consider beating on masculinity appropriate in light of social taboos to do with feminism.

well this "posative-masculine" behaviour gets kind of annoying and makes me dislike the charachters...and doesnt even see all that nessicary

or mabye thats just me, plus it also deprends on how its handled

 

[Hachura]

My favorite is The Dirty Dozen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dirty_Dozen].

Seen Kelly's Heroes? Good shit, back in the pre-Saving Private Ryan days when war films were fun.

EDIT: Oh, forgot what cliche I was gonna mention, lols.

"Blah blah blah it's the end of whatever."
"No... it's only just begun/started." <- That line. Or any variant of it. No matter how awesome a film is, if that line pops up, the immersion for me is immediately kille,d along with my respect for the screenwriter.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

NOT EVERY ANIMAL IS A DOG.
HORSES ARE NOT DOGS.
GORILLAS ARE NOT DOGS.
ALIENS ARE NOT DOGS.
That is all.

I'm senseing some hostility here. Do you not like dogs?

Dogs are fine-
I should elaborate- every time there is an animal character in a movie or something, someone holds up a bone or something, it bolts upright, and starts panting. Either that or they're sniffing the ground trying to find something, as if not only every animal thinks they're a dog, but a bloodhound at that.

 

[War Pony]

What about all the people who just get eaten and/or beaten to death (which usually appears to be the majority of the population)? How do thousands of people form these massive mobs when whenever they encounter anybody, they rip them apart?

This is usually something I typically wonder myself, and the best I've come up with is that... maybe the pieces of people can be taken off like the limbs of an old Transformer toy and rejoined with other, more "whole" pieces.

It felt more creative than saying the wizard does it.

 

[kittii-chan 300]

it doent really annoy me but...
1) in someform of fighting tournament in the finals one guy gets knocked out and the nice reporter lady says "ill just count very very slowly to 20 and everyone is like "oh my gawd i cant believe the kid one!" "he defeated the strongest person on the planet!" only to have the knocked out guy get back up at 19 seconds.
2)the cuteness trap. all the would-be heros walk into a room and see a wittle pink-haired girl and say "its ok sweetie, everythings gonna be ok now. do you no where the bad people went?" wittle pink-haired girl commences to rip them into peices.
3) "what the?! did the animation budget run out again?!"
4)"you idiot! this is not funny! why the hell did you [insert bad thing to do here]? this is unacceptable! well... seeing as its you the main charcter... i guess i could, maybe... let you off this time..."

 

[Vault101]

The ultra super mega hero you're supposed to feel sorry for since he finds his "morality". I honestly couldn't feel sorry for Ender at the end of Ender's Game.

ill add one to that

usuallay in games they think its really "badass" or "edgy" to make a hero thats a complete sociapathic prick with NO redeeming qualities (like at least in saints row 2 the boss is likeable and funny)

like Kane and lynch, Kratos from god of war

this is whats putting me off playing prototype

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

Anytime someone is supposed to be playing a video game, yet...
-...what's on screen looks nothing like what an actual game would look like.
-...despite the game looking like something relatively recent, generic noises from an 80's arcade game are heard in the background.
-...the characters make reference to getting the high score in a game that such a thing is not possible in at all.
-...the characters are simply randomly mashing buttons on the controller/keyboard.
And so on and so forth.

I'm also not a fan of the whole "massive crowd of people at the location where a massive disaster/firefight/battle occurs, yet somehow no one is killed or hurt" cliche.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

NOT EVERY ANIMAL IS A DOG.
HORSES ARE NOT DOGS.
GORILLAS ARE NOT DOGS.
ALIENS ARE NOT DOGS.
That is all.

I'm senseing some hostility here. Do you not like dogs?

Dogs are fine-
I should elaborate- every time there is an animal character in a movie or something, someone holds up a bone or something, it bolts upright, and starts panting. Either that or they're sniffing the ground trying to find something, as if not only every animal thinks they're a dog, but a bloodhound at that.

I feel your pain.


I hate how in superhero fiction that the author included a superman type character and made him an Asshole. Seriously, it not new or enjoyable.

The only one who did it right was this man:

Pick it up, it's a good read.

Oh, and I hate the Comic plot of killing off someone love ones. I'm looking at you Cry for Justice! Lian Harper did not need to die!


Linkara sums it up, perfectly on what they did to her:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/29537-justice-league-cry-for-justice-5-7

 

[KalosCast]

Characters who are an metaphor for the Nazi regime. WWII ended almost 70 years ago. Get over it.